3 ms·

I suspect that the way we watch the Olympics pretty much implies it is a country-team event. I'm pretty sure most people have their eyes on the medal count rank

by k_sze 4y ago

I suspect that the way we watch the Olympics pretty much implies it is a country-team event. I'm pretty sure most people have their eyes on the medal count rankings, not on who exactly wins a medal (unless you are a close friend or relative of a particular athlete). So I always thought all competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization.

osigurdson 4y ago
>> competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- k_sze 4y ago
  Celebration of excellence, yes. Just not personal excellence. The ancient Olympic games were already used as a political tool to assert dominance among Greek city-states. One of the points of the games since ancient Greece has been for the winning city-state to say “look, I can train my soldiers to be this good. You don’t want to mess with me.”
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    So why not simply forfeit then? It would have achieved the same goal without the shameful fakery.
    - k_sze 4y ago
      I think one possible explanation is that this is a weird side effect of the modern games being heavily commercialized. If athletes just quit without a fight, spectators won’t like it and tickets won’t sell.
      - smcl 4y ago
        Wait so is it a celebration of excellence or a just a commercial thing where the goal is simply to drive ticket sales? Because what you described was people putting on a show but ultimately acting out a script, like pro wrestling.
        k_sze 4y ago
        I would say you are getting to the core of the issue: conflicting expectations and interests among the IOC, the hosting country, the sponsors, the individual athletes, the national teams, the spectators both at home and at the venue: - the IOC, the hosting country, and the sponsors probably want the spectators to think that the games are about celebration of (personal) excellence, so they say forfeiting outright is bad sportsmanship; also, athletes putting up a fight is more exciting and sells more tickets. - at the same time, watching the medal count ranking is exciting; at least in the case of China, I believe that most people expect the national team *as a whole* to do everything they can to fetch more medals; for some people, the ability of the coach to strategize is part of the show; - the individual athlete of course wants a gold for themself if possible, but they also kinda have to keep in mind the hopes of the people, which is "more medals *for the country*"; And you may ask "but then why don't we just allow everybody to dope? Doping makes athletes strong/faster and should result in more exciting games if everybody dopes." I would guess it's because any form of doping is probably detrimental to the human body in the long term, which makes it an obvious bad image. Besides, it's possible that doping makes your athlete "expire" sooner, and so maybe it's just not a good deal for national teams to have to do short cycles of discovering talents and training them. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just hypothesizing out loud. And so, given the above factors, we have this weird situation where the IOC says you shouldn't forfeit, but could "turn a blind eye" if you can put up a convincing show of a fight. I'm just hypothesizing how this happens. And I'm not making any conclusion about whether this whole thing is ethical. I'm just laying out the forces at work. It is still somewhat unlike pro-wrestling because the national teams are really competing against each other. Within each national team, however, it may be a different story.
        osigurdson 4y ago

by k_sze 4y ago

osigurdson 4y ago

>> competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
k_sze 4y ago
Celebration of excellence, yes. Just not personal excellence. The ancient Olympic games were already used as a political tool to assert dominance among Greek city-states. One of the points of the games since ancient Greece has been for the winning city-state to say “look, I can train my soldiers to be this good. You don’t want to mess with me.”
- osigurdson 4y ago
  So why not simply forfeit then? It would have achieved the same goal without the shameful fakery.
  - k_sze 4y ago
    I think one possible explanation is that this is a weird side effect of the modern games being heavily commercialized. If athletes just quit without a fight, spectators won’t like it and tickets won’t sell.
    - smcl 4y ago
      Wait so is it a celebration of excellence or a just a commercial thing where the goal is simply to drive ticket sales? Because what you described was people putting on a show but ultimately acting out a script, like pro wrestling.
      - k_sze 4y ago
        I would say you are getting to the core of the issue: conflicting expectations and interests among the IOC, the hosting country, the sponsors, the individual athletes, the national teams, the spectators both at home and at the venue: - the IOC, the hosting country, and the sponsors probably want the spectators to think that the games are about celebration of (personal) excellence, so they say forfeiting outright is bad sportsmanship; also, athletes putting up a fight is more exciting and sells more tickets. - at the same time, watching the medal count ranking is exciting; at least in the case of China, I believe that most people expect the national team *as a whole* to do everything they can to fetch more medals; for some people, the ability of the coach to strategize is part of the show; - the individual athlete of course wants a gold for themself if possible, but they also kinda have to keep in mind the hopes of the people, which is "more medals *for the country*"; And you may ask "but then why don't we just allow everybody to dope? Doping makes athletes strong/faster and should result in more exciting games if everybody dopes." I would guess it's because any form of doping is probably detrimental to the human body in the long term, which makes it an obvious bad image. Besides, it's possible that doping makes your athlete "expire" sooner, and so maybe it's just not a good deal for national teams to have to do short cycles of discovering talents and training them. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just hypothesizing out loud. And so, given the above factors, we have this weird situation where the IOC says you shouldn't forfeit, but could "turn a blind eye" if you can put up a convincing show of a fight. I'm just hypothesizing how this happens. And I'm not making any conclusion about whether this whole thing is ethical. I'm just laying out the forces at work. It is still somewhat unlike pro-wrestling because the national teams are really competing against each other. Within each national team, however, it may be a different story.
        osigurdson 4y ago